Collaboration lays out plan for a clean, healthy Long Island Sound

Published 8:00 pm, Friday, August 12, 2011

NORWALK -- Jennifer Herring asked rhetorically, yet poignantly: "How are you going to love it and save it if you don't even know it?"

The president and CEO of the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk was referring to the Long Island Sound, a vitally important economic and recreational resource located in one of the most densely populated areas of the country.

Herring is also a member of the Long Island Sound Study's (LISS) Citizens Advisory Committee that recently announced the findings of a study titled "SoundVision: A Community Vision for Long Island Sound." The study outlines both short- and long-term action plans to protect and restore Long Island Sound. Improving water quality -- through actions such as upgrading wastewater plants and stormwater overflow systems, and reducing nitrogen levels and low-oxygen zones in the Sound -- is the top priority of the study.

"The Sound is a remarkable place and is wildly under-appreciated," said Herring, who helped draft the study. "Twenty million people live within 50 miles of Long Island Sound. Our challenge is to create a citizenry that appreciates the Sound. If we don't succeed in having a healthy Sound we will have lost what makes life worth living in this area."

The study includes goals and desired results, as well as steps to achieve the results. Save the Sound, Business Council of Fairfield County, Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and other organizations in Connecticut and New York, are also part of the public/private collaboration that produced SoundVision. Major funding was provided by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The nitrogen level is a big concern as 106 sewage treatment plants in Connecticut and New York discharge into Long Island Sound. Among the long-term action plans is urging more than $6 billion in wastewater treatment facility upgrades. The study also calls for immediate adoption of stormwater performance standards in Connecticut and New York.

She also stressed that the study was a joint effort with Connecticut and New York, which shares the waters of the Sound.

The LISS advisory committee comprises 18 people from Connecticut and 18 from New York. Several of the Connecticut committee members -- including Herring, Schmalz and Tanya Court of the Business Council of Fairfield County -- spoke with The Hour's editorial board recently about the study. The study's four main areas of concern are: protecting clean water; creating a safe place for plant and wildlife; building working communities on the Sound; and investing in the Sound.

"Long Island Sound seemed to have fallen off the radar screen (of the business community)," Court said. "People are surprised by the amount of activity that goes on around Long Island Sound."

The SoundVision study is designed to put the Sound back on the radar screen as a major component of SoundVision is educating the public. According to Schmalz, a previous study of the Sound -- the Long Island Sound Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan -- did not "engage citizens." The previous study, however, was reviewed extensively for the SoundVision study.

All residents, whether they live directly on the Sound or one of its tributary rivers or not, can have an impact on the Sound's water quality. Herring suggested citizens use less fertilizer, use commercial car washes, do not use plastic bags, and eliminate the use of the herbicide Roundup.

"People want to do the right thing, they are just not sure what the right thing is," Herring said. "The biggest problem is what people put into the water from their own actions. It's possible to change people's behaviors if we have the right plans in place."

Herring also encouraged people to get involved in projects such as beach clean-ups, bird and seal counts and horseshoe crab tagging.

A goal of the study is to reduce beach closings by 50 percent in five years.

Schmalz said the Sound is healthier now than it was several years ago, but "there's still a ton to be done. Bacteria levels are still too high."